


From Soho With Love

by ImprobableDreams900



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: 5+1 Things, Analysis, Bentley, Character Study, Crowley thinks about Aziraphale a lot, Crowley thinks he's cool, James Bond - Freeform, M/M, some violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-05
Updated: 2017-08-05
Packaged: 2018-12-11 13:43:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,777
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11715573
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ImprobableDreams900/pseuds/ImprobableDreams900
Summary: Five ways Crowley thinks he’s like James Bond, and one way he doesn’t.





	From Soho With Love

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so I know I said I wasn’t going to write anything for a while, but I just can’t help myself…
> 
> Y’all are gonna learn a lot of James Bond trivia, so buckle up. Mild spoilers for...well...pretty much every James Bond movie up through _Skyfall_.
> 
> Footnotes at the end of each section.

 

> “The simple fact is, the character was pretty much fully formed from the start,” [Daniel] Craig told me six years ago on the set of _Casino Royale_. “Sean Connery nailed it from the beginning. Bond's single-mindedness. His toughness. His ruthlessness. He wasn't infallible, but he always knew the answer, always knew exactly what to do in any situation. And he always knew how to wear a suit.”

-Benjamin Svetkey in _Entertainment Weekly_ #1219

 

**1\. He owns a classic car**

 

Everyone knows that James Bond has the coolest motor. It doesn’t even matter if it’s on four wheels. From bobsleds and moon buggies to double decker buses and that memorable time with the Soviet tank, it was simply undeniable that Bond always travelled in style. His most infamous ride was, of course, the 1963 Aston Martin DB5, which Q outfitted with machine guns, ejector seat, revolving license plates, et al in _Goldfinger_.

Crowley, however, found this fascination with the Aston Martin entirely unacceptable, because Bond’s first true car had been a _Bentley_. This was what Bond drove in both the original _Casino Royale_ novel and the second film, _From Russia with Love_.

Granted, it was a 19 _35_ Bentley, making it nine years younger than Crowley’s own model (and therefore produced after Rolls-Royce acquired the company in ’31), but there was something to be said for sticking up for the old firm, even if it was now under new management. Bond’s Bentley was dark green, which Crowley admitted was a nice enough colour, though he was personally partial to black where automobiles were concerned, entirely due to the influence of Henry Ford [1].

Bond’s Bentley also had a phone. This was clearly a later addition, since by the time _From Russia with Love_ hit screens in 1963, Bond’s Bentley was already an antique. Portable phones were really beginning to gain some traction in the market, though, and the moment Crowley saw the receiver in Sean Connery’s hand he knew he had to have one just like it. He paid an exorbitant amount of miracled money to have the latest model installed in his own Bentley, and delighted in phoning Aziraphale on it just so passersby could see that he had a phone in his car.

But as much as Crowley was enjoying these new films, he certainly hadn’t bought his Bentley _because_ of them; he’d bought her decades before Ian Fleming even put pen to paper. It had simply been a happy coincidence when, decades later, one of the biggest stars of the silver screen turned out to share Crowley’s excellent automotive tastes. If Crowley were honest with himself, he knew he’d picked out his Bentley mostly because they’d told him she was the best racing car Bentley had yet produced, and also because he liked the hood ornament [2].

It was also clear that Bond truly did consider the Bentley his proper car, and not the late-to-the-show Aston Martin [3]. Directly before Q revealed the newly-outfitted Aston Martin to Bond, 007 asked where his Bentley was, to which Q replied, with hardly an ounce of regret, “Oh, it’s had its day, I’m afraid.” [4] Bond then pointed out, puzzled, “It’s never let me down,” and the look of sorrow on his face was the only thing that kept Crowley from switching his admiration to the star of another popular franchise. Because it wasn’t _Bond_ who had abysmal taste in cars—it was _Q_.

And then there was the way that Bond drove his car of choice (or non-choice, per Q’s unforgivable meddling). Given Crowley’s natural propensity for breaking the law, he didn’t think that he would have exercised a great deal of automotive safety in any circumstances, but watching someone as suave as James Bond screech around corners in blatant disregard for traffic laws certainly did nothing to warn him off doing the same.

Bond seemed to spend the lion’s share of his time in cars either weaving up mountain switchbacks playing tag with women in cherry red convertibles or engaging in high-speed automotive chases. Since London wasn’t exactly known for its mountain switchbacks, Crowley opted for the latter. His careening through the streets usually caused less overall damage than Bond’s, though, due largely to the combined forces of Aziraphale’s nagging about preservation of life and Crowley’s own desire to keep the Bentley from harm.

That was probably the largest difference between James Bond and Crowley where automobiles were concerned: invariably, every vehicle of any sort that Bond laid a finger on ended up at the bottom of a ravine, in flames, crushed, crashed, shot at, sunk to a watery tomb, or some combination of the above. It was all part of the Bond formula, Crowley supposed; each new film starred a new car, and thus gave the producers a fresh opportunity for product placement. But, from a narrative sense, it only came across as a woeful lack of appreciation of automotive excellence.

Crowley had more respect for his Bentley than that, and liked a bit of continuity in his life, besides [5].

 

[1] You can have it any colour you like, as long as it’s black.

[2] It had wings.

[3] Crowley made a big fuss about how offended he was that the Bentley had been relegated to the footnotes of history, because clearly the Bentley was a superior piece of automotive engineering in every way, but privately he thought that the Aston Martins looked quite nice too. Not that he ever dared to think such treacherous thoughts anywhere in the vicinity of his own prized car, though, lest she think he was growing tired of her.

[4] To this day, Crowley can barely watch this scene, which is a bit of a shame, because it’s good fun watching all of Q’s other gadgets explode in the background.

[5] This was decidedly _not_ because Crowley had grown _attached_ to his Bentley; it was simply because picking out a new car would have been a spot of bother, and it would have taken far too long to get used to a new one. Besides, it had taken him nearly five years to coax Aziraphale into the Bentley in the first place, and he wasn’t sure how readily the angel would accept another vehicle, particularly if it had been manufactured in the last forty years.

 

 

**2\. He is the epitome of cool**

 

There is not a single thing about James Bond that could be classified as uncool [1].

From his Rolex and shaken martini to exquisitely-tailored suits and handsome good looks, everything about Bond spoke of confidence, masculinity, and luxury. Crowley found himself somewhat lacking in all three categories, and quickly decided that if George Lazenby, who had zero experience in acting but plenty in selling used cars, could be transformed into the suave Bond, then Crowley could too. It was just a matter of walking the walk and talking the talk.

Crowley had always been partial to suits, particularly since they were one of the few things he could wear with sunglasses and still look somewhat respectable, but he found himself taking a renewed interest in the art of tailoring. He bought himself the finest suit from Savile Row and even spent some time reading a book on etiquette [2] that told him all about how many buttons on his jacket he could button, and when.

The early films completed the outfit with a trilby hat, which Bond made a point of tossing onto the hatstand in his secretary's office whenever he came in. Bond never missed, and Crowley was certain that this was _always_ the case, even in the outtakes. Such scenes usually ended with him waving a farewell to the stately Ms. Moneypenny and offering a friendly “Ciao.” It was no coincidence that Crowley had picked up the send-off himself, though trilby hats had gone regrettably out of fashion several decades ago.

Bond was also incredibly skilled at gambling of any description, with the resolution of the plot often hinging on the outcome of a high-stakes card game. Crowley was also good at gambling, but this was mostly because he didn’t _gamble_ so much as miracle the winning cards into his hand.

Another staple of every Bond film was the exotic destinations. From Las Vegas to Hong Kong to outer space, Bond never sacrificed luxury. Five-star hotels seemed to spring into being anywhere Bond set foot, each a fresh study in minimalist luxury. It was again no coincidence that Crowley’s flat looked as unlived-in as the hotel in _Quantum of Solace_. It was a luxury to own a flat the size of Crowley’s in Mayfair, and it was even more of a luxury to never use it.

But despite the globetrotting tendencies of both Bond and Crowley [3], they had another thing in common: in the end, they always came back to London. For Bond, this was because he was a British citizen and London was where he was headquartered, but for Crowley it was more than that. London was a home he and Aziraphale had chosen together after millennia of flitting around from city to city, spending a fraction of a century here or there. Bond travelled the world in some measure to see the world, but Crowley had already seen it all and decided that there were some things—or some people—worth sticking around in one place for.

It was undeniable that another of the things that made James Bond so cool was his theme music. From _Dr. No_ to _Spectre_ , the theme had changed relatively little from Monty Norman’s original. On screen, the theme was saved for Bond’s finest moments, when he was at his most invincible. Crowley didn’t have a custom theme song, but he did have 185 songs by Queen that he was obligated to listen to on repeat, and some of them were equally epic. There was nothing quite like listening to “Don’t Stop Me Now” while barrelling down Oxford Street in extreme violation of several traffic laws [4].

But possibly the most iconic thing about James Bond, more iconic even than his theme music, was simply his name and the particular way he said it. When Crowley had adopted his latest human alias, taking ‘Crowley’ as his surname, he’d had the opportunity to choose his first and middle names. Frankly, he’d chosen the A. because he’d thought it might bolster his image to be associated with the notorious Aleister of the same last name, but the J.…that had been entirely so Crowley could tip down his sunglasses at suddenly-terrified waitresses and not-at-all-terrified Aziraphales, and introduce himself as “Crowley. James Crowley.”

 

[1] Unless you count the misogyny, which is admittedly not cool at all, but ~~people~~ men thought it was.

[2] When Aziraphale wasn’t watching, naturally.

[3] Crowley considered himself the greater in this area, since his travels included places that he’d visited before, during, _and_ after they were cool.

[4] As well as the occasional law of physics.

 

 

**3\. He’s been around forever**

 

Okay, so maybe sixty-four years wasn’t exactly a drop in the bucket compared to the six millennia and counting Crowley had under his belt, but it was a long time for something to last nowadays. And, quite like Crowley, every few years Bond would crop up with a new face and recently-tailored suit. This change was usually accompanied by some superficial differences, but underneath it all the core of the character stayed the same. Crowley did think it was a little unfair that Bond always turned up ruggedly handsome and enviably fit, though, and also that he didn’t have to physically die every time [1].

This was undoubtedly helped by the fact that Bond was nigh on invincible. Like most cinematic heroes, he seemed to have a superhuman ability to dodge bullets. Either that, or the villainous henchmen had all flunked their marksmanship exams. Crowley too had a superhuman ability to dodge bullets, but only if he had enough warning and the time and energy to work a miracle. Otherwise, he found that hired thugs tended to have unfortunately professional aim, and had taken several bullets himself in the centuries since guns had been invented [2].

Over the fifty-five years of 007 starring on the silver screen, human society evolved and Bond and Crowley evolved right alongside them. Bond learned that it was no longer acceptable to slap the behinds of women he fancied, and Crowley became exceptionally good at this incredible thing the humans had invented called Pong.

Of course, Bond also kept abreast of technological developments—Q was always quick to make sure Britain’s finest was stocked up with the newest gadgets. Crowley didn’t have anyone giving him a free supply of rocket cigarettes, laser watches, or explosive keychains, but he did have a pen that could write underwater and the latest iPhone, the latter of which Aziraphale certainly seemed to think was a futuristic gadget [3].

 

[1] Putting aside the obvious advantages of immortality, the dying part was always dreadfully messy, painful, and stressful.

[2] One had been meant for Aziraphale, but Crowley maintained to this day that he’d already been standing behind the angel when the soldier fired. And Aziraphale had been looking the other way at the time, so, really, who was he to say what had happened? Even if the bullet had entered Crowley’s chest through his _front_ instead of his _back_ …

[3] More specifically, Aziraphale thought it was an overpriced, needlessly complicated, and impossibly contrived contraption whose popularity would soon fade, which Crowley interpreted to mean that he’d get one in fifty years, when the last company offering landline service—probably Jitterbug—finally folded.

 

 

**4\. He’s cold-hearted, except to his friends**

 

James Bond was always a bit of a cold-hearted bastard. _Quantum of Solace_ underscored it nicely, with Bond professing to have both no regrets and no friends. _Casino Royale_ ’s Vesper Lynd asked Bond if having the blood of innocents on his hands bothered him, to which Bond replied with a calm, “I wouldn’t be very good at my job if it did.”

Crowley found solace in this response, because he was in a similar situation and was relieved that someone understood the position he was in. Below had demands, and those demands needed to be met. Neither Bond nor Crowley could afford the luxury of letting civilian casualties get to them—not that knowing that helped much, in Crowley’s experience. There was nothing quite like dying over and over again to get a feeling for what exactly murder entailed.

Of course, Crowley’s feeling of relief was short-lived as Vesper retorted with a line Aziraphale would have been proud of: “You’ve got a choice, you know. Just because you’ve _done_ something doesn’t mean you have to _keep_ doing it.” It was a bit fanciful and naïve of a response, in Crowley’s opinion. He could certainly stop listening to the directions Below sent at any time, but he didn’t imagine he’d last very long once they figured out he’d effectively deserted. Being a demon wasn’t a job Crowley could just quit at any time like Bond could with MI6, no matter what Vesper said.

There was a similar exchange in _GoldenEye_ that left an equally unpleasant taste in Crowley’s mouth, this time between Bond and Russian computer programmer Natalya Simonova. She asked Bond how he could be so cold, to which he responded, “It’s what keeps me alive.” This was met with a sharp, “No, it’s what keeps you alone.” Crowley thought this too was unfair; it was one thing for a fictional character to take the moral high ground, but his continued existence was _actually_ on the line, and he was going to do whatever was necessary to keep himself in this world. And, besides, he _wasn’t_ alone, despite his cold-heartedness. He was stuck with Aziraphale [1].

Depiction of violence was one area where James Bond _did_ evolve over the years. The Sean Connery days were classic cinema—the bad guys came running and shooting, Bond had a bit of a tussle with them, usually involving slightly comedic sound effects and some very eyebrow-raising stunt fighting, and the villainous henchmen collapsed theatrically to the ground.

Crowley had lived long enough to know that fighting for your life usually wasn’t that easy, clean, or unconcerning, but he liked to think about that as little as possible. Meanwhile, film was doing an excellent job of taking something that was fundamentally violent and horrific and turning it into something light, heroic, and family-friendly. James Bond killed people left and right—the British government had even given him a _licence_ to do so—but that didn’t make him fundamentally bad or irredeemable. Crowley didn’t know if the same was true of someone who was literally working for the forces of darkness, but it was nice to think that it was.

After Connery’s step back, George Lazenby’s Bond took a turn and showed a softer side. He was romantic and kinder than his predecessor, and it seemed that Bond might turn out to be a lover, not a fighter, after all. Crowley dismissed Lazenby as a worthy successor to Connery, both for this reason and because he was generally upset about Connery being replaced in the first place [2].

The level of violence slowly increased over the next few decades, until it suddenly jumped to new heights with Daniel Craig’s Bond. The very first scene of 2006’s _Casino Royale_ showed Bond ending the life of a man serving as a terrorist contact for a corrupt MI6 Section Chief, but gone were the stock sound effects and pulled punches. Instead, the sweat beaded on Bond’s forehead as he slammed the head of his enemy into a sink and set about drowning him. And the man fought back, because of course he wanted to live—they always wanted to live. He gasped for breath and writhed under Bond’s coolly professional grip, and when it was over it was crystal clear that this had been murder, plain and simple, and the viewer was still expected to root for the person who’d just done the murdering.

Crowley didn’t even try to pretend this didn’t make him nauseous. He’d once killed Aziraphale in a similar fashion, millennia ago, though it had been a stone plinth and not a ceramic sink he’d cracked his opponent’s skull into. Aziraphale had fought back then, too, struggling against discorporation as Crowley throttled the life out of him. Crowley had won that particular battle, and in the end Aziraphale’s corporation had grown still beneath his hands as Aziraphale himself returned to Heaven. Afterwards, Crowley had thought he would feel victorious and maybe go for a nice drink—he’d set the adversary back a step, after all—but instead he’d just felt like he was going to be sick. It had taken several centuries and a great deal of alcohol before he’d forgotten the feeling of Aziraphale’s throat convulsing under his hands as the angel struggled to breathe, or the desperate way he’d tried to pry Crowley’s fingers free as he scratched at his attacker’s skin.

Meanwhile, Daniel Craig straightened up on the screen, face a composed mask of indifference, and moved on with the job. Part of Crowley wished he had that composure—after having discorporated Aziraphale, he’d spent the next ten minutes just sitting there waiting for his hands to stop shaking—but another part thought that, if he did, that might mean he had lost too much of himself. When it came right down to it, Crowley didn’t have the stomach for cold-blooded murder, and he didn’t think it was a taste he was interested in acquiring.

Somehow, Crowley made it through the remainder of _Casino Royale_ —he’d quite enjoyed the rest of it, actually—but _Quantum of Solace_ had another unpleasant surprise waiting for him. In the film, Bond travelled to Bolivia with an old ally of his, the scruffy but reliable MI6 agent René Mathis, who would soon meet an untimely end at the hands of the Bolivian police. This wasn’t what bothered Crowley, though; it was the part directly afterwards, where Bond sat in the middle of a darkened street and cradled his dying friend as he breathed his last.

Again Crowley was unpleasantly reminded of Aziraphale, this time of when the angel had intervened to stop a mugging and ended up on the wrong end of the mugger’s knife. By the time Crowley had realised something must be wrong and finally tracked Aziraphale down, the angel had been too far gone to be saved with what little healing power Crowley possessed. Aziraphale had been barely conscious and not very coherent at the time, but he had still wrapped a hand loosely around Crowley’s lapel as his shivering grew weaker and his eyes glassy.

When it was over, Bond dumped Mathis’s body into a nearby skip and went on his way, claiming that Mathis wouldn’t care. Crowley knew for a fact that Aziraphale really didn’t mind whatever happened to his corporations once he vacated them, but Crowley had felt that it was deeply wrong to just leave it there, in the puddles of dirty water dotting the narrow brick alley, so he made sure it was properly buried.

The treacherous 006 claimed that Bond’s loyalty was “always to the mission, never to his friends,” but Crowley decided that this was another place he and Bond differed. Below could give Crowley any orders they liked, but it had been centuries since Crowley had even considered betraying Aziraphale. There were some things, Crowley had learned over many centuries of believing otherwise, that were just more important than the mission.

 

[1] This line of reasoning was somewhat undermined by the fact that Aziraphale had gone to buy some popcorn during the time of the line’s delivery in the cinema, leaving Crowley very much alone.

[2] This had absolutely _nothing_ to do with the fact that Crowley saw a little too much of himself in the kind-hearted Lazenby, or because he nearly cried when Bond gently cradled the still-warm body of his newly-wedded and even more newly-assassinated wife. Later, Daniel Craig’s Bond would again strike too close to home for Crowley, as Bond showed a vulnerable and traumatised side that Crowley did his darndest to pretend didn’t exist in himself.

 

 

**5\. He works for a secret organisation**

 

Okay, so maybe Hell was a particularly poorly-kept secret, but it was increasingly hard these days to find someone who legitimately put stock into it, and who would respond with the appropriate terror whenever Crowley lowered his shades and told them he was a demon [1].

Of course, MI6 was primarily an organisation working for the good of mankind, and Below was certainly working for the opposite, but with his and Aziraphale’s Arrangement in full effect, sometimes Crowley _was_ secretly working for the greater good. And when that was the case, he usually had to keep a weather eye on the horizon for any other supernatural beings, which lent him a legitimately secretive air. Being a secret double agent was, in Crowley’s opinion, just as cool as being a regular secret agent.

The Bond films did have the advantage of clear-cut villains, though. Everyone was either a good guy or a bad guy, and there was very little room for shades of grey. Occasionally the Bond girl would betray Bond, but it wasn’t like it ever really came as a surprise. But then, as the years rolled by, the waters became more muddied and Bond’s trusted allies started betraying him more and more often. Crowley tried to avoid this fate as much as possible by only really trusting one person, which had worked for him so far. This, Crowley was convinced, was a brilliant tactical move [2].

Another advantage to Bond’s nemeses was that they were always truly villainous, with cunning plans to destroy, enslave, or extort the world. Crowley, like Bond, was generally very much pro-world, but he found himself a little short of malicious bad guys bent on destroying it. He could foil Aziraphale’s Heavenly plans, of course, but most of the time they weren’t particularly ambitious or even very inventive, and the rest of his time he spent inconveniencing the humans. The humans clearly weren’t evil masterminds, but if Crowley imagined they were unwilling pawns for some great malevolent agent, it took his mind off the fact that he liked them an awful lot.

Bond also dealt with his villains in a thoroughly civilised way. He met with them over dinner or a game of golf, and though it was clear that they fully intended on killing each other later in the evening, they were still able to treat each other civilly in the meantime. Though it had been a long time since Aziraphale and Crowley had harboured serious ill will towards each other, Crowley fancied sometimes that their trips to the Ritz or St James’s were all part of his plan to lull the angel into a false sense of security [3].

Bond’s bosses were also notoriously lax for letting him get away with practically anything. Bond ignored a truly prodigious number of direct orders from M, but despite this he never suffered any negative consequences. This was mostly because, deep down, M liked Bond, and also because he had a very good track record of coming out on top. Crowley wasn’t so lucky, and Below was rarely so accommodating.

 

[1] Sometimes Crowley missed the good old days, but not too much, because people who believed you were actually a demon were a lot more likely to try and exorcise you or tie you to a stake.

[2] Crowley didn’t have any “friends” to keep close, but he kept his enemy closer anyway.

[3] The fact that it turned out to be a genuine sense of security was irrelevant.

 

 

**1\. He doesn’t have much of a thing for women**

 

It was patently obvious to anyone with a working set of eyes that James Bond was all about the ladies. No film was complete without the wining and dining of a particularly beautiful, bikini-clad woman, followed by their retreat to Bond’s elegant hotel room. Crowley, on the other hand, didn’t make a habit of wining and dining any women, regardless of their beauty [1].

Given that Crowley had spent a decent chunk of his life as a woman, he didn’t particularly see Bond’s charm in that department, or why he’d want to limit himself to one-night stands with women who were doomed to die before the credits rolled. And they _always_ died. Even George Lazenby’s bride met an untimely end, gunned down with just seconds left in the film. Perhaps that was why Bond rarely let himself get attached. Even after his long-term love Vesper betrayed and then died saving him, Bond stated flatly that she didn’t mean anything to him. Crowley had watched Aziraphale die too many times to think that even he would be able to pull off a lie that big.

It was also fairly clear from Bond’s own professed preference for married women that it was the challenge of attaining the forbidden that he was after, rather than the formation of any sort of legitimate relationship. If Crowley was frank with himself, he didn’t see the point in having so many fleeting, meaningless relationships. Bond might be satisfied with a new girl every night, but Crowley needed a bit more consistency in his life than that. He’d lived long enough to know that everything was temporary, and it was a comfort to know that there was some aspect of his life that had taken up a rather permanent position.

Or maybe Bond was doing it because he was lonely. He didn’t have a wife or long-term partner who survived more than one film, so maybe he was just finding whoever was available to fill his spare time with. This might have been more understandable to Crowley had he a great deal of spare time himself, which he didn’t; Aziraphale saw to that.

Actually, Aziraphale did a rather good job of filling the space of a Bond girl in Crowley’s life, but to limit him to that role would have been a gross misestimation. Crowley had actually spent some time turning this problem over in his mind, and he did so again now as he steered the Bentley through a roundabout in excess of the speed limit.

Aziraphale wasn’t so expendable or forgettable as Bond’s latest muse, and he didn’t seem to fit the bill besides: he wasn’t often in need of rescuing, from a particularly foreign land, or exactly a swimsuit model.

Crowley’s next thought was of Aziraphale as the villain, à la Goldfinger: a classy, sophisticated nemesis who Crowley got to know socially. They certainly had the social part down cold, but Aziraphale wasn’t any more of a villainous mastermind than Crowley was, and the big bad usually met a grisly end when the film concluded anyway.

Next, Crowley considered Aziraphale as a fellow 00 agent. Most of the 00s had already appeared on screen in _Thunderball_ , but maybe Aziraphale could pick up the title of 005 or 008. Except that Aziraphale had the suaveness and charm of a wet duck, and would have been about as good at secret-agenting as Crowley would have been at pottery [2]. Aziraphale would doubtlessly forget all about the mission and wander off into a bookshop, claiming that the villain’s enslavement of the planet was all part of the ineffable plan, and who was he to question it? No, Aziraphale didn’t quite fit the bill there either.

So perhaps he was someone back at MI6 headquarters, like M or Q, a safe distance from the actual dangers and responsibilities of fieldwork. Except Crowley certainly wasn’t taking orders from Aziraphale, and technologically speaking the angel still thought sliced bread was pretty nifty. So maybe he was another agent entirely—A or Z, maybe, the operative whose job it was to sit around in bookshops and gather information that could be used for Crowley’s adventures abroad.

Crowley had been settling on this option when it had occurred to him all in a flash exactly where Aziraphale fit into his analogy. Always staying in London, patiently awaiting Crowley’s return, offering the occasional quip but really there to facilitate Crowley’s own magnificence—Aziraphale was _Moneypenny_ , Bond’s desk-bound secretary.

The more Crowley thought about it, the more it fit. Ms. Moneypenny had been there since the beginning, greeting Bond in _Dr. No_. She called him “dear,” offered to make angel cake, said “Ciao” back to him, and, once, even tossed her hat onto the hatstand in the corner just like Bond did [3]. And she was a reliable constant throughout the early Bonds. Lois Maxwell portrayed her for fourteen films, a reassuring presence even as Bond changed faces.

And she and Bond had always had an unusual relationship. It bordered on flirtatious, with Bond repeatedly promising to take her out to dinner, but he could never keep the date and it wasn’t very clear how serious Moneypenny was being about it anyway. Besides, she was probably the only truly unattainable woman in Bond’s life; she was a coworker and a colleague, and as such it would have been inappropriate for anything to exist between them. She was out of bounds. Rather like Aziraphale—he _was_ a member of the adversary, after all.

And then there was _Skyfall_.

And that clinched it. Because in _Skyfall_ , the opening scene showed Naomie Harris and Daniel Craig tearing through Istanbul, hot on the heels of a mercenary with a flash drive of stolen classified information. Harris’s character—later revealed to be none other than Moneypenny herself—was every inch as badass as Bond, and for those first ten minutes they were truly partners in crime [4], and utter equals in every way. But then Bond ended up on the top of a train, and Moneypenny, trying to take out the mercenary he was grappling with, accidentally shot Bond. Of course, she felt terrible and later made up for it by saving his life, and Crowley thought that was as fine a summary of his and Aziraphale’s relationship as he’d ever seen.

Ever since Crowley had cemented this similarity in his mind, he’d felt a fresh pang of unhappiness whenever he watched the early films. Bond would go off on some adventure, almost get himself killed, return home miraculously in one piece, and Moneypenny would always be there, waiting for him with a genuine smile and forgiveness for his actions in the field. Each time, Bond would offer to take her somewhere and then fail to follow through. And the worst part was that Moneypenny seemed to accept the idea of them being together as a sort of fun office joke. Moneypenny deserved better than that, for all her loyalty and welcoming smiles and putting up with Bond.

But Bond wasn’t one for going steady or settling down. He was a lonely wanderer, moving from one woman to the next, never pausing to appreciate what had been in front of his face all along. Never alone, but always lonely.

Crowley rolled the Bentley to a stop outside of Aziraphale’s bookshop and stayed there for a long moment, looking out at the shop and the closed sign in the window. Aziraphale would be waiting for him, as Aziraphale always was, with a smile and a cup of tea.

The important thing was that, when it came right down to it, Crowley _wasn’t_ James Bond. He wasn’t doomed to make and re-make the same mistakes for every fresh generation of filmgoers. He could make whatever decisions he wanted, and not worry about the ratings. His life was his own.

Crowley opened the Bentley’s door and got out, “Someone to Love” cutting off as he did so. He was remembering the scene in _Die Another Day_ with Moneypenny and Q’s virtual reality glasses, and thinking that it was high time that happened without the ‘virtual’ part.

Crowley straightened his tie as he approached the bookshop door, smiling as he pulled his sunglasses off and tucked them safely away into a pocket.

He wasn’t James Bond, and maybe that was a good thing.

 

[1] Though now that he was thinking about it, he _did_ spend an awful lot of time wining and dining Aziraphale…

[2] Surprisingly competent in both cases.

[3] As far as Crowley was concerned, this was as much a blow for feminism as Bond learning to keep his hands to himself.

[4] Or crime-fighting. Given the amount of property damage, it probably depended on which government you sympathised with.


End file.
